My Path to Confidence and Competence in English

By Abhishek Sinha

I was five years old when I actually started to go to school. I went to a government Hindi school. My class consisted of only two periods, how to write Hindi and how to talk Hindi in the proper way. Those days were fun for me, until my uncle decided to send me to an English medium school.
Boxton English School was the school I went to. That school was completely different from my previous school. We had to wear uniforms, a tie, and a heavy dark blue coat. We also had more subjects. I started to learn math, science, geography, history, more Hindi, and also English.
Coming to an English medium school took all of the fun away from me. There were lots of rules to follow, which was completely impossible for me to do. They also used to talk about having manners and respect for others, and many more weird rules. But the most important thing of all which really bothered me was English class. I hated English class more than I hated street dogs. I just did not like to write or read. I sometimes used to skip my English class just for no reason at all.
Skipping my English class was not a problem until my teacher sent a note to my uncle about that. Even though I was beaten up the next moment, that also didn’t help me to like English. After some years, I was sent to a boarding school in some different state in India The main reason for this action was to teach me life’s lesson. My boarding school was really tough and strict in both rules and education wise. I was really scared of my headmaster because that man looked like Hitler and hit like WWE wrestlers.
He was a very strict man and, as far as I know, everybody used to be scared of him. If they were not afraid, I knew I was. That fear in my heart actually made me start to focus on this dumb subject, but not that much. I was an OK student in English but not as good as the others in my class.
When I was in my Junior year I was sent to a different school for my last two years of high school. The studies were good over there and so were the people. After writing my junior years final exam, I went to Delhi to live there with my uncle. After some days he gave me shocking news, that we had to leave in only five days for America. Now that really shocked me because I knew that in America English was a necessity and to become someone you really needed that subject.
It was April 1st, 2004 when I came to the United States of America. A few months later I joined Montgomery Blair High School for my studies. I was in 10th grade when I started to go to Blair. Very soon I discovered that even though I didn’t like to speak or write English, it was really a necessity in this school, and I did what I needed to do in English class.
But there was one class which I really hated at first, and that was journalism. In this class we actually worked in the newspaper, “Silver International.” But this class had nothing to do with any other subjects in this school except for writing and reading. We weren’t really students. We were called the “staff” for this newspaper.
Today I am a senior at this high school and am still in that journalism class, and am proud to say that I love English. Silver International has worked in my life miraculously and brought me up to this stage. Two years ago I hated English and this class. But today I am the editor for this newspaper and love to write. My writing has improved and I can feel that in my articles today. One of my articles has been published in a bilingual book in Switzerland, and the credit goes to all of my ESOL teachers and of course to the Silver International.
Nothing is impossible if a person will do something with all of his heart and mind. Today after so many years I realize that I do have that capability of becoming a successful person in life.